I received notice today that my Sabbatical request for Spring 2020 has been approved. This is of course great news. In celebration, I decided to put some thoughts on paper, with the caveat that today's entry, as with my last one, is just "thinking out loud". My hope is by that time I will be … Continue reading A note on “Political Marxism”
Category: Social Theory, Public Policy, Higher Ed
Evolutionary Political Economy and Philosophy
In this entry I will lay out a short, preliminary sketch of some philosophical problems in Evolutionary Political Economy. The reader may wish to note that this is part of a planned book length project on evolutionary political economy and that the problems I am writing about today are intended to form at least part … Continue reading Evolutionary Political Economy and Philosophy
The Greatest Trick of the Devil
In a recent Article in American Affairs, economist Phillip Mirowski presents an interesting and cogent argument that Neo-liberalism is a well organized, well funded, and quasi-coherent vision of political economy. He argues for the existence of what he terms a Neo-liberal Thought Collective (NTC) which only partially overlaps with Neo-Classical Economics. In Mirowski's view, the … Continue reading The Greatest Trick of the Devil
Economic History and Inquiry
I'm still thinking through the issues related to my last blog post and my research project, today's post will be rather short. Since I have some free time this week, I decided to do a little browsing and came across these two interesting articles on Economic History and Historical methods written by economists. The Historian's … Continue reading Economic History and Inquiry
Can anything go?
The title of this blog post, is of course, a reference to Paul Feyerabend's famous (or if you prefer, infamous) slogan "anything goes". But a careful reading of Feyerabend shows that he didn't really mean literally, "anything goes". My immediate goal however is not to defend or critique Feyerabend per se, at least not today. … Continue reading Can anything go?
Announcing: The Economic Consequences of the Peace. An Exchange.
A colleague of mine and I in the English and Humanities Department at my University (Shawnee State University) will be working on a project on John Maynard Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace." We are starting with an exchange during an event sponsored annually at my University called "Faculty Festival of Achievement". I will … Continue reading Announcing: The Economic Consequences of the Peace. An Exchange.
Slouching Towards Secular Stagnation: Part 2
In a previous post I discussed the recent turn of some notable mainstream economists towards reconsideration of Alvin Hansen’s thesis of secular stagnation. It would seem that there is a more general trend at work here, which embodies at least two themes: A modest revival of some parts of the “Old Keynesian” class of models, … Continue reading Slouching Towards Secular Stagnation: Part 2
